U.S. historian denounces Japanese scholars' statement over wartime sexual slavery

An American history scholar expressed strong displeasure Wednesday after a group of Japanese historians demanded a U.S. publisher revise the description of Japan's sexual enslavement of women during World War II in a textbook.

The demand, led by history scholar Ikuhiko Hata, followed and were similar to the much-denounced attempts by Japan's government to pressure U.S. publisher McGraw-Hill to alter the description of the sexual slavery issue, claiming there are grave errors in the textbook.

The attempts were denounced as efforts to water down the atrocity.

Last month, Alexis Dudden, a professor at the University of Connecticut, and 18 other American scholars issued a statement denouncing Japan's demand toward the publisher as attempts to "censor history." In addition to those scholars, Harvard Professor Andrew Gordon joined in the statement later, she said.

On Tuesday, Dudden criticized the Japanese scholars' demand.

"To me, on the eve of 70th anniversary commemorations, this is simply part of the deeper effort by a small yet incredibly powerful and well-connected part of Japanese society to bolster official claims about the war and empire in general," she said. ...